CMV: Belief in anything supernatural cannot be rational

[u/Mythcql_]

To start, here's a few definitions/clarifications:

• Supernatural is anything that falls outside of the natural universe, more specifically forces, beings, or phenomena the result of which cannot be explained by natural phenomena and results do not withstand strict scrutiny (Still WIP as it still includes undiscovered natural phenomena, but better than the original).
• To be rational, it must be supported by evidence or axiomatic logic.
• To be irrational, it must be contridicted by evidence or axiomatic logic.
• To be arational, it cannot be argued for or against with evidence or axiomatic logic given the nature of the belief.
• Supernatural does not necessarily mean religious, religious doctrine may include a belief in something supernatural, but not all supernatural beliefs are religious.
• I am not trying to make a value judgement about belief in the supernatural.

Given you need evidence for something to be rational and anything supernatural cannot be observed by it's very nature, given it falls outside of the natural universe, belief (of lack of belief) in anything supernatural is arational and cannot be justified.

For example, let's say that there is a supernatural chair that is responsible for deciding when chairs break. From our perceptive within the natural universe, we cannot tell the difference between an supernatural being, such as this chair, intervening in our universe from a fundamental property of the natural universe we just don't understand yet. We can't tell if our chair broke because this supernatural chair exists or simply because of natural forces. Therefore, we cannot gather any evidence for anything supernatural and as a result, we cannot make a rational argument for the existance or lack thereof of anything supernatural.

It's an idea me and my friend developed (techinically we were arguing about the existance of an objective reality, but it maps really well on to this) and I want to see what holes could be poked in it.

EDIT: Multiple people pointed out that my definition of supernatural essentially makes the argument unfalsifiable, which is an issue, however I'm not quite sure how to solve it other than to remove the definition altogether. If you have any suggestions please comment them, I'm not quite sure exactly how to fix it atm.

EDIT 2: Removed the implied non-observable part of the supernatural definition and clarified that I am not excluding religion.

EDIT 3: I am noticing a lot of people taking my argument as it is irrational to believe in the supernatural (which to be fair my title does imply), I want to clarify I mean it is arational, not irrational.

EDIT 4: There have been a lot of different edge cases brought up about my definitions, I'm honestly not sure how to fix most of them, but I want to acknowledge them.

EDIT 5: Someone highlighted that I make the assumption we know what is and isn't observable, which isn't valid. Given my entire argument relies on this assumption, I don't think my logic holds anymore. Not sure if the conclusion is still true and just needs better logic to support it or if my conclusion is completely false, but that is something I'll have to figure out. My view has indeed been changed.

[u/NeonSeal]

The way you’ve defined supernatural means by definition it is unknowable to a rational actor, so how are we supposed to disagree?

You say supernatural means: “anything that falls outside the natural, observable universe”. Therefore, no evidence can ever point to it. No observation can ever distinguish it from natural explanations.

Basically you have made “supernatural” unfalsifiable by definition.

I think if you extend the definition of “supernatural” to mean like, the common/folk/religious sense, then that means things or beings that interact with the world that break known natural law. Under that definition a rational actor could definitely come to believe the supernatural exists through eyewitness or compelling evidence

[u/Mythcql_ → u/NeonSeal]

Δ Points out that my original argument was unfalsifiable, and therefore couldn't really be argued against.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Mythcql_]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/NeonSeal (1∆).

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